His head dipped, as if giving into a bout of deep contemplation, and the asphalt below him blurred out of focus. There in the Krispy Kreme parking lot, his jaw slackened from consuming one doughnut after another, a pool of syrupy saliva lingered and leaked from off its precipice. His face bore the conflicted expression of sickness, frustration, bemusement and desire. This was the face of the 2006 Krispy Kreme Challenge and it haunted customers and competitors alike.
More than 150 people gave themselves over to a challenge Saturday morning that was distinguished by both its athletic and gastronomical demands: Run two miles from the Belltower to Krispy Kreme, slam a dozen doughnuts in the parking lot and run another two miles back, all in under an hour. The pre-race anxiety was so thick you could taste it.
Separate strategies and concerns wafted openly into the moist morning air, as the competitors readied themselves for the discomfort that lay ahead.
“I think it’s crucial to eat [the doughnuts] slow and steady,” Paul Mobley, a senior in mechanical engineering, said.
Mobley also noted he considered sneezing on his fellow competitors’ doughnuts fair game.
“I’m not afraid of throwing up,” David Boaz, a sophomore in political science, said — in direct violation of the rule that explicitly prohibited acts of regurgitation.
The city of Raleigh held its breath as successive heats of metabolic marvels were unleashed upon the streets in five-minute intervals. At first moving at a steady clip, the herds began to thin as the downhill slope of Clark Avenue sadistically switched into the undulating stretch that is Peace Street. As the third group of 15 neared the shores of Krispy Kreme, runners could already be seen making their way back for their triumphant return.
Several participants were openly vocal about their intent to circumvent the informal rules laid out by the Challenge’s organizers.
“We’re going to split the dozen three ways,” Ruth Garland, a sophomore in biochemistry, Kylie Goodell, a sophomore in industrial engineering and Julie Cavenough, a sophomore in biochemistry, said clandestinely, “It’s going to be a team effort.”
While the runners raced against the clock, their bodies were locked into fierce internal competition. Sarah Ash, an associate professor of nutrition, said the real challenge would be between the gastrointestinal tract and legs of each participant.
“The stomach is going to be diverting a lot of blood away from the leg muscles,” Ash said. To psych themselves out, Ash said each competitor should remind themselves they have basically fueled themselves with 2400 calories.
“I would just tell myself that I have pure energy coursing through my veins,” Ash said. “Though honestly, the whole thing makes my skin crawl. I can’t eat two doughnuts in one sitting.”
Some participants chose a purist route, consuming only one unadulterated doughnut at a time. Meanwhile, their peers were smashing anywhere from two to eight doughnuts together into flat stacks, in hopes of quickening the whole consumptive process. Several individuals could be seen wiping the flaky glaze off into the boxes, while others acted as referees, calling fouls on their fellow offenders in jest.
Perhaps sensing the psychic distress that surrounded the Belltower, Tom Stafford, vice chancellor for student affairs, was present Saturday morning to lend the participants some much-needed support.
“We did some crazy things back in my college days,” Stafford said, “but nothing like this.”
Stafford was pleased to see so many students turn up for an event that would go on to benefit the North Carolina Children’s Hospital with proceeds of more than $800.
The overall scene, however, was one of perverted conviviality. Everyone there seemed alive and aware that they were partaking in something greater than themselves. After all, who could not be proud of having run four miles and working through 12 doughnuts in under an hour?
“You can feel the excitement in the air,” Stafford said. “This event shows that our students can have a good time while supporting a good cause.”